Melissa Weininger
7th year PhD Student in the Committee on Jewish Studies, University of Chicago
BA - Harvard University (1995)
I am a doctoral candidate in the Committee on Jewish Studies studying Hebrew and Yiddish literature. My dissertation, supervised by Professors Menachem Brinker, Francoise Meltzer, and Jan Schwarz, focuses on the work of three writers – Sholem Asch, A.A. Kabak, and Uri Tzvi Greenberg - who wrote about Jesus in Hebrew and Yiddish. As an undergraduate, I studied English literature and Women’s Studies at Harvard, and I still have a strong interest in gender theory. I also love to read contemporary literature, The New Yorker, and the New York Times.
Before starting graduate school, I spent time living in Israel and teaching Hebrew to fifth- and sixth-graders at a Jewish day school, which was much more difficult than teaching undergraduates. At U of C, I have worked as a writing tutor in the Humanities Core and taught Elementary Yiddish, and I have really enjoyed my time in the classroom.